Why don’t more parents send their kids to Basis McLean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is, more and more parents are sending their kids to Basis McLean. Compare to last year, the total student count increases 22%, The number of 9th graders increases 34.5%.
Yes, there are some teachers left including middle school director. But only 4.25% teachers left.
I am the one who posted many posts in this thread in Spring with imperfect English. I am back.
lol

It’s great to hear from someone who knows the data with such great accuracy. Increase of the total enrollment by 22% is impressive. Now the school grew to ~610 students.

I'm joining the PPs here: the percentages might give a skewed picture. For example, if there were total 4 students in the 9th grade last year and this year 2 students added, the growth is 50%. Assuming the 34.5% is accurate number, what is the enrollment? 25 total in the 9th grade? 10 total in 11th? Another interesting metric is the retention percentage. What is the retention rate in transition from MS to HS, for example?
The percentage of teachers left is 4.25%. Let’s assume that’s 4 out of 98. Judging only by the numbers, this is not a big loss. However, what subjects did they teach? Are there resources to redistribute the load? Perhaps, the 4.25% number doesn’t include the mentioned above MS director. Rumors say that, in addition to the director duties, he was teaching physics courses, covering the load of a teacher who, seemingly, was driven out last October by the policies of the new HoS.
Maybe the reason why people hesitate to enroll their children is the administration policies that emerge from the combination of the CCP style management and solely pursuit of the profits.

The former MS director (still shown on the BIM website) is now teaching middle school science in a Fairfax public school, according to his LinkedIn profile, so that is very plausible. Imagine abandoning a higher-paid management job to go back to the public schools that he left in 2017 because he really didn't like it there.

That's the reality at BIM now.

I presume you have spoken with him directly about his return to FCPS... well I have and he has been interested in an AP position for a while and the only way FCPS hires for an AP position is from within. Which means, one has to be in the school in order to even be considered for that job.

Again, most of the info here is pure speculation. Teachers leave for various reasons, moving out of state *several*, others want get into admin, etc., people need to do what's best for them, spin it any way you like - but if you don't have facts...

He is the only person I ever knew who left teaching for a management track (also leaving public for private because of abuse from students that would not be tolerated at BASIS, then turned around and went back to teaching in public.

Kinda speaks for itself, no matter how you dress it up. Leaving just before school starts is also not normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is, more and more parents are sending their kids to Basis McLean. Compare to last year, the total student count increases 22%, The number of 9th graders increases 34.5%.
Yes, there are some teachers left including middle school director. But only 4.25% teachers left.
I am the one who posted many posts in this thread in Spring with imperfect English. I am back.
lol

It’s great to hear from someone who knows the data with such great accuracy. Increase of the total enrollment by 22% is impressive. Now the school grew to ~610 students.

I'm joining the PPs here: the percentages might give a skewed picture. For example, if there were total 4 students in the 9th grade last year and this year 2 students added, the growth is 50%. Assuming the 34.5% is accurate number, what is the enrollment? 25 total in the 9th grade? 10 total in 11th? Another interesting metric is the retention percentage. What is the retention rate in transition from MS to HS, for example?
The percentage of teachers left is 4.25%. Let’s assume that’s 4 out of 98. Judging only by the numbers, this is not a big loss. However, what subjects did they teach? Are there resources to redistribute the load? Perhaps, the 4.25% number doesn’t include the mentioned above MS director. Rumors say that, in addition to the director duties, he was teaching physics courses, covering the load of a teacher who, seemingly, was driven out last October by the policies of the new HoS.
Maybe the reason why people hesitate to enroll their children is the administration policies that emerge from the combination of the CCP style management and solely pursuit of the profits.

The former MS director (still shown on the BIM website) is now teaching middle school science in a Fairfax public school, according to his LinkedIn profile, so that is very plausible. Imagine abandoning a higher-paid management job to go back to the public schools that he left in 2017 because he really didn't like it there.

That's the reality at BIM now.

I presume you have spoken with him directly about his return to FCPS... well I have and he has been interested in an AP position for a while and the only way FCPS hires for an AP position is from within. Which means, one has to be in the school in order to even be considered for that job.

Again, most of the info here is pure speculation. Teachers leave for various reasons, moving out of state *several*, others want get into admin, etc., people need to do what's best for them, spin it any way you like - but if you don't have facts...

He is the only person I ever knew who left teaching for a management track (also leaving public for private because of abuse from students that would not be tolerated at BASIS, then turned around and went back to teaching in public.

Kinda speaks for itself, no matter how you dress it up. Leaving just before school starts is also not normal.

Agree wit the lastpost, this departure does look peculiar regardless of how one spins it. However, some of the PPs are correct. Techers leave due to variety of reasons: a teacher follows the spouse to California, an older teacher retires after the new teacher is hired, etc. But some departures tell a story worth to ponder about. One year after the BASIS School System was purchased by a Chinese investment company, the prominent MS math teacher left BASIS McLean. This teacher was with the school since its inception and announced departure in the summer of 2021 after the meetings with the new HoS, who was brought to BIM from China. Shortly after in October of 2021, a physics teacher, who taught MS and AP courses left just two months after the begging of the school year. This is a curious correlation with the new HoS starting to implement his policies. Worth mentioning that, after this unexpected departure, the aforementioned MS Director was tasked to teach physics in addition to his administrative duties. Then, in November of 2021 the school Operations Manager suddenly left. Another interesting correlation? Then, early in the summer of 2022, a MS teacher of chemistry and math announced departure for another school. This teacher was with BIM since its inception and was one of the “core” faculty. Finally, right at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, a flurry of unexpected resignations took place: the above mentioned MS Director, the HS Director, two (all of them) PE teachers, HS history teacher and, maybe, some others. Possibly, the MS Director does aspire to become AP in FCPS or, maybe, he left BIM because of the policies of the new administration?

In choosing school for their child, the parents should consider all available information. Once the choice is made, there is no re-do. For those who have made the choice – nobody is attacking you. Rather, people try to make an informed decision by sharing what they know.

[Anonymous]

Is the Head of Ops gone? Her name and the name of the family member she hired are no longer listed.

Could it finally be true?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the Head of Ops gone? Her name and the name of the family member she hired are no longer listed.

Could it finally be true?

In their infinite wisdom, the corporate overlords at BIM promoted her to a regional management position. Classic case of the Peter Principle, pushing her to ever higher levels of incompetence and responsibility that she can't handle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New BIM family here. I found it really weird that there are so many non-BIM family members posting on this thread demanding "truth" on the school website. Why are you so invested or threaten by this small school? Do you check out other school websites and demand the same "truth" too? If you pulled your kids out from BIM, where are your kids now? Do you demand the same "truth" with your current school?

Agree completely. The NCS and GDS websites have plenty of out-of-date curricular information and no information on actual schedules and which classes are actually taught. The staff pages are also only periodically updated. All these private schools are haphazard in what they update on their websites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New BIM family here. I found it really weird that there are so many non-BIM family members posting on this thread demanding "truth" on the school website. Why are you so invested or threaten by this small school? Do you check out other school websites and demand the same "truth" too? If you pulled your kids out from BIM, where are your kids now? Do you demand the same "truth" with your current school?

Agree completely. The NCS and GDS websites have plenty of out-of-date curricular information and no information on actual schedules and which classes are actually taught. The staff pages are also only periodically updated. All these private schools are haphazard in what they update on their websites.

NCS and GDS don’t have new HOS every year or recruitment/retention issues. They have a very solid track record of academic success and college placements. BIM has not yet sent a kid to HYP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New BIM family here. I found it really weird that there are so many non-BIM family members posting on this thread demanding "truth" on the school website. Why are you so invested or threaten by this small school? Do you check out other school websites and demand the same "truth" too? If you pulled your kids out from BIM, where are your kids now? Do you demand the same "truth" with your current school?

Agree completely. The NCS and GDS websites have plenty of out-of-date curricular information and no information on actual schedules and which classes are actually taught. The staff pages are also only periodically updated. All these private schools are haphazard in what they update on their websites.

NCS and GDS don’t have new HOS every year or recruitment/retention issues. They have a very solid track record of academic success and college placements. BIM has not yet sent a kid to HYP.

BIM is new, only had very few high school graduates, less than or around 100 maybe in total It already sent kids to Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Brown, Connell, U Chicago,Duke, CMU, JHU, UCB, UCLA, Rice, Emory, UVA, GT, UMD, WM, etc. From what I know, almost everyone got into top 50 schools, More than 30% got into T10.
Do you think Niche ranking is less creditable than this forum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New BIM family here. I found it really weird that there are so many non-BIM family members posting on this thread demanding "truth" on the school website. Why are you so invested or threaten by this small school? Do you check out other school websites and demand the same "truth" too? If you pulled your kids out from BIM, where are your kids now? Do you demand the same "truth" with your current school?

Agree completely. The NCS and GDS websites have plenty of out-of-date curricular information and no information on actual schedules and which classes are actually taught. The staff pages are also only periodically updated. All these private schools are haphazard in what they update on their websites.

BIM DID already update their staff website listings to reflect the mass departures that some said here were just fiction. You need to keep up with the plot.

My current school publishes all that plus all of its financials due to its charter status. No secrets. BIM will jump through hoops to dodge it if you ask them to confirm the time of day, much less anything important.

[Anonymous]

major mismanagement- lack of exposure to arts and anything other than a set, rigid, academic curriculum with limited resources. it's a pretty horrible environment if you are open and curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:major mismanagement- lack of exposure to arts and anything other than a set, rigid, academic curriculum with limited resources. it's a pretty horrible environment if you are open and curious.

That's your own opinion and full of caricature. A lot of the students do arts and music outside of school and do club sports. They are looking for solid academic content so school time is not wasted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:major mismanagement- lack of exposure to arts and anything other than a set, rigid, academic curriculum with limited resources. it's a pretty horrible environment if you are open and curious.

That's your own opinion and full of caricature. A lot of the students do arts and music outside of school and do club sports. They are looking for solid academic content so school time is not wasted.

That's the classic BIM attitude: don't "waste" real school time with those arts, music, and sports thingies, take another AP and grind away on more tests, because that's what life is all about, getting the top scores on the most tests.

Just plug them into the assembly line and let them get dragged along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:major mismanagement- lack of exposure to arts and anything other than a set, rigid, academic curriculum with limited resources. it's a pretty horrible environment if you are open and curious.

That's your own opinion and full of caricature. A lot of the students do arts and music outside of school and do club sports. They are looking for solid academic content so school time is not wasted.

That's the classic BIM attitude: don't "waste" real school time with those arts, music, and sports thingies, take another AP and grind away on more tests, because that's what life is all about, getting the top scores on the most tests.

Just plug them into the assembly line and let them get dragged along.

It is called learning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:major mismanagement- lack of exposure to arts and anything other than a set, rigid, academic curriculum with limited resources. it's a pretty horrible environment if you are open and curious.

That's your own opinion and full of caricature. A lot of the students do arts and music outside of school and do club sports. They are looking for solid academic content so school time is not wasted.

That's the classic BIM attitude: don't "waste" real school time with those arts, music, and sports thingies, take another AP and grind away on more tests, because that's what life is all about, getting the top scores on the most tests.

Just plug them into the assembly line and let them get dragged along.

It is called learning

Which happens in so many ways at other schools. But those who are fixated on this one approach are too dug in and invested in it to even consider that. Good luck with the grind factory.

At least prospective parents know exactly what they are getting into here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New BIM family here. I found it really weird that there are so many non-BIM family members posting on this thread demanding "truth" on the school website. Why are you so invested or threaten by this small school? Do you check out other school websites and demand the same "truth" too? If you pulled your kids out from BIM, where are your kids now? Do you demand the same "truth" with your current school?

Agree completely. The NCS and GDS websites have plenty of out-of-date curricular information and no information on actual schedules and which classes are actually taught. The staff pages are also only periodically updated. All these private schools are haphazard in what they update on their websites.

NCS and GDS don’t have new HOS every year or recruitment/retention issues. They have a very solid track record of academic success and college placements. BIM has not yet sent a kid to HYP.

BIM is new, only had very few high school graduates, less than or around 100 maybe in total It already sent kids to Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Brown, Connell, U Chicago,Duke, CMU, JHU, UCB, UCLA, Rice, Emory, UVA, GT, UMD, WM, etc. From what I know, almost everyone got into top 50 schools, More than 30% got into T10.
Do you think Niche ranking is less creditable than this forum?

Yes. Those students definitely had lots of sports, art, music and other EC achievements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is, more and more parents are sending their kids to Basis McLean. Compare to last year, the total student count increases 22%, The number of 9th graders increases 34.5%.
Yes, there are some teachers left including middle school director. But only 4.25% teachers left.
I am the one who posted many posts in this thread in Spring with imperfect English. I am back.
lol

It’s great to hear from someone who knows the data with such great accuracy. Increase of the total enrollment by 22% is impressive. Now the school grew to ~610 students.

I'm joining the PPs here: the percentages might give a skewed picture. For example, if there were total 4 students in the 9th grade last year and this year 2 students added, the growth is 50%. Assuming the 34.5% is accurate number, what is the enrollment? 25 total in the 9th grade? 10 total in 11th? Another interesting metric is the retention percentage. What is the retention rate in transition from MS to HS, for example?
The percentage of teachers left is 4.25%. Let’s assume that’s 4 out of 98. Judging only by the numbers, this is not a big loss. However, what subjects did they teach? Are there resources to redistribute the load? Perhaps, the 4.25% number doesn’t include the mentioned above MS director. Rumors say that, in addition to the director duties, he was teaching physics courses, covering the load of a teacher who, seemingly, was driven out last October by the policies of the new HoS.
Maybe the reason why people hesitate to enroll their children is the administration policies that emerge from the combination of the CCP style management and solely pursuit of the profits.

The former MS director (still shown on the BIM website) is now teaching middle school science in a Fairfax public school, according to his LinkedIn profile, so that is very plausible. Imagine abandoning a higher-paid management job to go back to the public schools that he left in 2017 because he really didn't like it there.

That's the reality at BIM now.

I presume you have spoken with him directly about his return to FCPS... well I have and he has been interested in an AP position for a while and the only way FCPS hires for an AP position is from within. Which means, one has to be in the school in order to even be considered for that job.

Again, most of the info here is pure speculation. Teachers leave for various reasons, moving out of state *several*, others want get into admin, etc., people need to do what's best for them, spin it any way you like - but if you don't have facts...

He is the only person I ever knew who left teaching for a management track (also leaving public for private because of abuse from students that would not be tolerated at BASIS, then turned around and went back to teaching in public.

Kinda speaks for itself, no matter how you dress it up. Leaving just before school starts is also not normal.

Agree wit the lastpost, this departure does look peculiar regardless of how one spins it. However, some of the PPs are correct. Techers leave due to variety of reasons: a teacher follows the spouse to California, an older teacher retires after the new teacher is hired, etc. But some departures tell a story worth to ponder about. One year after the BASIS School System was purchased by a Chinese investment company, the prominent MS math teacher left BASIS McLean. This teacher was with the school since its inception and announced departure in the summer of 2021 after the meetings with the new HoS, who was brought to BIM from China. Shortly after in October of 2021, a physics teacher, who taught MS and AP courses left just two months after the begging of the school year. This is a curious correlation with the new HoS starting to implement his policies. Worth mentioning that, after this unexpected departure, the aforementioned MS Director was tasked to teach physics in addition to his administrative duties. Then, in November of 2021 the school Operations Manager suddenly left. Another interesting correlation? Then, early in the summer of 2022, a MS teacher of chemistry and math announced departure for another school. This teacher was with BIM since its inception and was one of the “core” faculty. Finally, right at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, a flurry of unexpected resignations took place: the above mentioned MS Director, the HS Director, two (all of them) PE teachers, HS history teacher and, maybe, some others. Possibly, the MS Director does aspire to become AP in FCPS or, maybe, he left BIM because of the policies of the new administration?

In choosing school for their child, the parents should consider all available information. Once the choice is made, there is no re-do. For those who have made the choice – nobody is attacking you. Rather, people try to make an informed decision by sharing what they know.

I just saw a LinkedIn announcement that a long-term MS History teacher is starting a new job at Flint Hill tomorrow.

That's not a normal move. This is blood in the hallways personnelwise.